How to Be a Help instead of a Nuisance: Practical Approaches to Giving Support, Service, and Encouragement to Others

Despite our good intentions to help others, we often hold back because we don't know what to do or are afraid to intrude. Even when we overcome our hesitations, we sometimes find that we have made things worse with our attempts to help. Karen Kissel Wegela combines the insights of traditional meditative practices and modern psychology to address these problems, concluding that the most important thing we can offer to anyone in distress is our mindful presence, without agendas or expectations. When we learn to cultivate this ability to be open-heartedly, compassionately present, we find that we can intelligently apply a variety of skills and techniques, including listening, being mindful companions, and forming supportive teams for individuals and families. We may find that our actions benefit us as much as they do the people we seek to help.

This books provides concrete practical advice, with techniques and exercises for developing the capacity to serve, support, and encourage those in need—for people in the helping professions as well as for everybody else who wants to provide genuine help to others.